Supervisors to discuss adding more medicinal marijuana regulations

Red Bluff >> With an early marijuana growing season expected the Tehama County Board of Supervisors is scheduled Tuesday to discuss adding several new regulations to the county's cultivation ordinance through an emergency procedure.

The changes include an outright ban on cultivation on vacant lots, a required annual registration renewal, a department transfer of registration oversight and a potential increase in the registration fee.

The registration fee would be discussed at an April 29 public hearing, if set by the board.

The coming growing season will be the first full season under the county's more stringent ordinance that was revised in July 2013.

The county originally adopted its Marijuana Cultivation Ordinance in 2010.

Medicinal marijuana proponents legally challenged the ordinance, but the 3rd District Court of Appeals affirmed it in February 2013.

Emboldened by that decision the board added more bite to the ordinance last summer adding monetary and criminal penalties for those found out of compliance.

The amended ordinance also decreased the total number of plants allowed at a grow site to 12, regardless of maturity.

Those changes were brought about by the board's Marijuana Cultivation Review Ad Hoc Committee.

That committee, which consists of Supervisors Steve Chamblin and Bob Williams, has continued to meet and is proposing the additional changes to the ordinance to address enforcement issues that have arisen.

The proposed ban on cultivation on vacant lots would prohibit growing on any parcel without a permitted residential use.

"Consistent experience in Tehama County, and other counties with similar ordinances, indicates that marijuana cultivation on vacant lots is more likely to lead to negative secondary impacts, and less likely to comply with the registration, setback, plant limit, security and location requirements of (the ordinance)," the staff report says.

While the ordinance requires growers to update their registration whenever any relevant information changes, the ad hoc committee has found that requirement has often been ignored.

The proposal to be discussed would require an annual registration be submitted no later than March 1 of each year and would include late registration penalties.

The committee is also proposing that registration oversight be transferred from Tehama County Health Services Agency to the Environmental Health Department, because of the increased workload.

The committee is asking that all three proposals be adopted under an Emergency Ordinance, which would make them applicable after passage rather than following a 30-day waiting period and a second reading.

The staff report said without the emergency status there would be negative impacts to neighbors, enforcement difficulties to the county as well as hardship to growers who may be forced to relocate their crops.

The board will also be asked to schedule a public hearing on April 29 to consider adopting a registration fee increase.

The county has a fee study that found it takes about 90 minutes of staff time to process each marijuana cultivation registration.